The Who, What, When, Where and Why of Chemistry
Chemistry is not a world unto itself. It is woven firmly into the fabric of the rest of the world, and various fields, from literature to archeology, thread their way through the chemist's text.

Seven years ago, Andy Mitchinson, an editor at Nature, wrote at The Sceptical Chymist (Episodes II and III) about the dearth of science fiction that involved the science of chemistry in a substantive way. Why isn't there more of it?

He pointed to a list put together by Connie Willis, an award winning SF author, and an article by Philip Ball in Chemistry World.

I'm working on a column for Nature Chemistry about the ways in which chemistry and science fiction play off each other. Is science fiction more than escapist entertainment? Should chemists care that there's not more chemistry inflected fiction out there? Should we deliberately expose students to science fiction? Should we encourage them to write it?

To go alone with the piece, I'm trying to create a periodic table of chemical fiction (not including articles called out by Retraction Watch). Are there pieces on my list you particularly love? Something I'm missing? I'd love to hear in the comments!

For a full set of periodic science fiction short stories, I encourage you to browse Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction. What really happened to the Hindenburg?

Author

Work

As

Asimov, Isaac

Whiff of Death, The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline, Thiotimoline to the Stars, Pate de Fois Gras